I Hope We Took You Somewhere: Poetry @Yoga Jam
That was what I said at the end of our reading to the Yoga Jammers who came to Katherine’s and my Fairy Godmother’s Midnight and the Art of Archetype call-and-response poetry in the Tea Shanti.
Most came on the title alone because the description wasn’t in the program, and some didn’t even know it was poetry. There was a QR code to scan for a description but the attendees we asked hadn’t done that.
In this series, our two unique voices drew on fairy tale and archetype themes. The reading was designed to build momentum and depth and for the poems to complement each other.
It’s sometimes hard to read audience expressions, and poetry isn’t an easy sell, especially when our topic is depth psychology into aging and, as poet David Whyte says, “apprenticing ourselves to our own disappearance.” But there’s always a few who lean in, whose faces light up, who listen intently, and I focus on them.
I finally relaxed when I read The Other Woman and the group of about twenty all laughed.
The discussion that ensued at the end of the reading was most rewarding. They did not hold back.
One person wanted to know how we started writing poetry. Another wanted a copy of one of my poems to put it to music.
September 1st, 2024 2:49 pm
Wow! Love this. Katherine’s poem made me cry – While yours was more comical. Could you send me “Sunflower” I would like to read it again.
September 1st, 2024 7:37 pm
The School of Higher Learning or Poem to Be Read with Your Shoes Off isn’t funny.
Sunflowers
I can’t stand to see them droop
Faces hung like lamps bent over
Their lights are out
Their shame is as drastic
as their joy was in August
They burn at both ends
Like high summer models in Van Gogh poses
Did their beauty go to their heads
or do they bow in humble gestures?
But I can only see what their faces mirror
fears in me, bent over crones with osteoporosis
pecked out eyes, lost teeth
Did they stand too tall
too long without cover?
I don’t grow sunflowers
They’re too dramatic
They’re easy targets
of nature’s wrath
They hang like skulls
in suicide nooses
in garden graveyards
for Halloween
Or stand like crosses
of martyred saviors
with their seed spilled
like blood
Their thorny crowns
have fallen down
Their bones loom long
As days close in
like lowered coffins
and light abandons me
Winter comes
as a Rumplestilskin
to steal my first born golden son
Faded hope is money spent
Now we are poor with no mothers
Now we are old with only mortal gods
and rent to pay for all we have loved
Ashes to ashes
We knew this would happen
But we never want it to be now
I keep the memory of sunflowers
on refrigerator magnets
next to bright shiny photographs
from when my children were young
https://looseleafnotes.com/2016/09/sunflowers/
September 1st, 2024 7:40 pm
And here’s a link to the poem a young woman songwriter wants to put to music. https://looseleafnotes.com/2018/09/playing-dead-before-the-ball/